# Grayhat Blog Tag: Game Design > Expanded public blog context for posts tagged Game Design. ## Page - [Game Design Tag](https://grayhat-company-blog.grayhatstudio.workers.dev/blog/tag/game-design) - [Game Design Tag LLM Context](https://grayhat-company-blog.grayhatstudio.workers.dev/blog/tag/game-design/llms.txt) - [Root LLM Context](https://grayhat-company-blog.grayhatstudio.workers.dev/blog/llms.txt) - [Root Full LLM Context](https://grayhat-company-blog.grayhatstudio.workers.dev/blog/llms-full.txt) - [Tag API](https://grayhat-company-blog.grayhatstudio.workers.dev/blog/api/public/v1/tags/game-design) ## Tag Details - Slug: `game-design` - Description: Not provided - Post count in current snapshot: 2 ## Current Posts - [Wrap-up: Web Social Party Game Jam!](https://grayhat-company-blog.grayhatstudio.workers.dev/blog/web-social-party-game-jam) - Grayhat's first national game jam was an absolute blast! Over 65 developers from 10 universities battled it out to create the best multiplayer card games using PlayroomKit—and the results were wild. Here's the full behind-the-scenes breakdown. - [Pixels to Players: How Good Game Designs are Executed](https://grayhat-company-blog.grayhatstudio.workers.dev/blog/pixels-to-players-how-good-game-designs-are-executed) - Taking a game from an idea to reality is hard. How do you navigate through a sea of endless ideas and technologies, to deliver something... fun? ## Child Route Content ### [Wrap-up: Web Social Party Game Jam!](https://grayhat-company-blog.grayhatstudio.workers.dev/blog/web-social-party-game-jam) - Slug: `web-social-party-game-jam` - Published: 2025-04-28T18:41:28.000+05:00 - Updated: 2025-04-29T01:03:14.000+05:00 - Reading time: 7 min - Tags: Events, Game Design, Gaming, Unity, Playroom, PlayroomKit, Announcements, Multiplayer Gaming - Authors: Talal Ahmed Khan - Visibility: public ℹ️This is just the beginning for us.Picture this: **65 game developers**, **10 universities**, and **48 chaotic hours** to build multiplayer card games from scratch. Why did we do it? Simple—**to break things at scale.** At Grayhat, we’ve been building **PlayroomKit for Unity** for months—testing mechanics, debugging sync issues, taking the SDK to production (finally! 🥲) and pitching wild ideas to Little Umbrella. But why keep the fun to ourselves? ### **Get the bread** ✅ **Massive Playground for Experiments** We set the *exact same challenges* we face in client projects—multiplayer sync, turn systems, state management—and let **10x more developers** crash into them. The result? A goldmine of feedback, failed prototypes, and genius workarounds. (*Jou cheez hum kar rahay hain, wohi in say karwa kay dekho!*) ✅ **Direct Firehose of Talent & Ideas** No theory, no hypotheticals—just **raw, unfiltered game dev chaos**. Our team (@Talha, @Saad, @Talal, @Zohair) got to mentor, troubleshoot, and *be inspired by good ideas* (shhh) from jammers. Some of these concepts? **Mindstorm-level potential.** ✅ **Side Perks** - HR training? Check. (*Nothing teaches like a room full of panicked devs.*) - Marketing boost? Check. (*Nothing sells like screaming students.*) - PlayroomKit partnership leveled up? **Big check.** ### **Why NaSCon?** - **Lesser (not zero) logistical nightmares** (Islamabad = home turf) - **FAST-NUCES host team = instant synergy** - **Recruitment pipeline?** (*Hello, future Grayhat hires.*) Bottom line? **We didn’t just run a game jam—we weaponized it.** And this was just **our first time.** ### **The Game Judging Panel 👁️** The Game Jam’s submissions were evaluated by **Tabish Ahmed** and **Aaron (aka @swagshaw on Discord)** from **Playroom/Little Umbrella**, two key figures in the multiplayer gaming space. **Tabish Ahmed**, a co-founder of **Little Umbrella**, has been instrumental in shaping Playroom’s vision for accessible multiplayer game development. His background in product strategy in various FAANG companies (Google, Meta, Adobe) and developer ecosystems made him the perfect judge for assessing both technical execution and creative design. **Aaron (@swagshaw)**, Playroom’s Developer Advocate, is a well-known voice in indie game dev circles—especially on Discord, where he helps run the **Boss Rush Game Jam**. His deep understanding of gamejamming and hands-on experience gave him unique insight into how teams could leverage the SDK’s multiplayer features to build unique games. *(Next up: The full story of how 65 devs survived 3 days of multiplayer madness.)* 🚀 ## **Day 1: Learning, Brainstorming & Chaos** 📍 **Venue:** FAST-NUCES, Islamabad - **9:00 AM:** The FAST-NUCES host team arrived, setting up projectors, decorations, and (most importantly) water bottles. - **12:00 PM:** Participants rolled in—some confident, some nervous, all excited. - **Problem Statement Drop:** "Build an original multiplayer card game. No Uno clones!" (We had to enforce this *multiple* times.) - **Workshop Time:** The Grayhat team, spearheaded by **Talha Momin**, ran a **PlayroomKit deep dive**, explaining multiplayer sync, game states, and how to avoid disasters. - **Most Chaotic Moment:** A last-minute Wi-Fi firewall problem forced some teams to **hotspot from their phones**. By evening, teams had rough prototypes—some functional, some… *experimental*. *****The "How to use PlayroomKit" Workshop, delivered by Talha Momin (Software Engineer 1) ## **Day 2: Build Day** 🕒 **9:30 AM:** Host team arrived 🕒 **10:30 AM:** Teams returned, looking slightly more tired but determined. - **The Great Multiplayer Struggle:** Many teams hit roadblocks with PlayroomKit syncing.- *"Why does my card disappear when I play it?"* - *"Why is my opponent seeing a different hand?!"* - **Grayhat to the Rescue:** Volunteers ran from table to table, fixing bugs and calming nerves. - **Underdog Story:** Team *"Anicards"*—who had zero Unity experience before the jam—somehow built a working animal battle card game. Legends. By **2 PM**, exhausted but hopeful, teams left to polish their games overnight. ****Day 2 was mostly about coding, and collaborating ## **Day 3: Judgement Day** 🏆 **8:00 AM:** Final sprint—some teams arrived **early**, frantically fixing last-minute bugs. - **9:00 AM:** Judges arrived (Grayhat on-site + Playroom online). The pressure was *on*. - **Judging time:**- *5th Ace* had judges super impressed with a well thought out genre-blender game. - *Anicards* – Well, at least it worked! - *Others – *mostly submitted half-baked designs and implementations. But understandable given the duration of the event. - **Winner Announcement:**- **🥇 1st Place:** *5th Ace* (PKR 50,000) – "A genius social deception game!" - **🥈 Runner-Up:** *Anicards* (PKR 30,000) – "Simple, polished, and fun!" - **Most Emotional Moment:** The *Anicards* team (all first-time Unity users) **celebrated like they’d won the lottery**. ## **What Participants Said** Here's the real, unfiltered participant feedback from the Game Jam, presented clearly and honestly: ### Participant Testimonials: The Good, The Bad, and The Real The Frustrations*"PlayroomKit is not good - it doesn't make game dev easy. We spent hours just trying to get basic multiplayer working."* *"My cards remained static and unplayable even though I made sure they were copied prefabs from the original. After analyzing the code for hours, I had to change my entire strategy."* *"The introduction of PlayroomKit was a surprise that threw us off. We needed at least a week to properly learn it before competing."* The Technical Challenges*"Biggest struggle? Definitely PlayroomKit integration. The initial setup was confusing and we lost valuable time."* *"We're newbies and making a multiplayer game without prior experience is hard. The documentation wasn't enough for beginners."* *"The Discord activity integration was unclear. A short tutorial would have helped immensely."* The Positive Experiences*"The mentors were incredibly helpful. When we were stuck, they came to our table and solved our issues personally."* ("Anicards" team member) *"Despite the challenges, I'm now fully entering game dev because of this event. The hands-on experience was invaluable."* (Enthusiastic participant) *"Card designing was the most enjoyable part for me. Seeing our creations come to life was rewarding."* (Anonymous artist) Suggestions for Improvement*"Don't limit developers to specific tools. Let us use what we're comfortable with."* (Anonymous developer) *"Announce required SDKs at least 3 days before the jam. Learning new tech during competition is stressful."* ("Doctor vs Virus" team) *"More time! Two days isn't enough, especially when learning new tools. A 5-day jam would be better."* (Multiple participants) The Real Talk*"Nascon management was terrible. But the Game Jam organizers themselves were great - responsive and helpful."* (Blunt participant) *"There's nothing a student enjoys more than staring at Visual Studio for 3 hours, taking a break, then staring for 3 more. 10/10 would do again."* (Sarcastic but dedicated participant) *"The competition felt like 50% game dev and 50% wrestling with external tools. More focus on actual game creation would be better."* (Experienced participant) The Silver Linings*"Even though we didn't finish, we learned so much about multiplayer sync that we couldn't have learned in classes."* ("Cards Clash" team) *"The Q&A session at the end was super helpful for understanding what we did wrong."* (First-time jammer) *"Seeing our simple animal battle game actually work in multiplayer was magical. Worth all the frustration."* ("Anicards" team) 📉 **Biggest Struggles:** - **Multiplayer sync issues** (of course) - **Confusing PlayroomKit setup** (npm + Unity = headaches) - **Time pressure** (many teams couldn’t finish in the short duration) ## **Key Takeaways** ✅ **PlayroomKit is dope but needs better docs & templates.** ✅ **Multiplayer is HARD.** (But rewarding when it works.) ✅ **Original ideas win.** (No Uno clones made it to finals.) ✅ **Mentors = heroes.** (Shoutout to the Grayhat squad.) ## **What’s Next?** 🔜 **More Jams, More Games:** We’re already planning the next one—bigger prizes, smoother onboarding, and maybe even a **Discord integration challenge**. 🚀 **For Playroom/Little Umbrella:** - **Better Unity docs** (please!) - **One-click starter templates** (save us from npm hell) - **Native build support?** (WebGL is cool but limiting.) 🎮 **For Participants:** Keep polishing those games—some of these deserve a real release! ### **Final Words** Huge thanks to: - **FAST-NUCES** for hosting. - **Playroom/Little Umbrella** for the SDK + judging. - **All participants** for the chaos, the memes, and the awesome games. **Missed this one? Don’t worry—we’re just getting started.** 🚀 ## **Play the Winning Games** ### The 5th Ace (Winner 👑) **Team:** Neva **Playable Demo:** https://5thace.playroom.gg **Concept:** - A **social deduction card game** blending bluffing and strategy. - Players alternate roles: *Liar* (creates false card combos) vs. *Detective* (calls out bluffs). - Power-ups add meta-layers to deception. **Why Explore Further?** - Proven fun factor with minimal assets (Minecraft-inspired UI). - Scalable for Discord’s social ecosystem. - Potential to expand with themed decks (e.g., cyberpunk, fantasy). Unity WebGL Player | 5th Ace*5th Ace### **Anicards** (Runner-Up 🥈) **Team:** Red Team **Playable Demo:** https://anicards.playroom.gg **Concept:** - Animal-themed **asymmetric battle game** where cards represent creatures with unique powers. - Lightweight but functional multiplayer sync via PlayroomKit. **Why Explore Further?** - Simple core loop ideal for quick sessions. - Easy to reskin for educational/children’s markets. - Could integrate NFT-style collectible animals. Unity WebGL Player | ANICARDS*ANICARDS### **Other Game Jam Submissions (Non-Winners)** - **Doctor vs Virus** *(Learning Squad)*- Asymmetric card game: Doctor (heals) vs. Virus (infects organs). - **MCards** *(Usama)*- Multiplayer solitaire-style card game. - **Solo Leveling: Hunters Unleashed** *(Lada)*- Fast-paced boss-battling card game with gear/summon mechanics. - **2Q (Monster Duel)** *(2Q Team)*- Turn-based monster battle with elemental strengths/weaknesses. - **Cards Clash** *(Ziki Team)*- Unfinished card combat game (concept only). - **Unnamed Card Game** *(NebrasAssad)*- Attempted dynamic card system with prefab issues. ### [Pixels to Players: How Good Game Designs are Executed](https://grayhat-company-blog.grayhatstudio.workers.dev/blog/pixels-to-players-how-good-game-designs-are-executed) - Slug: `pixels-to-players-how-good-game-designs-are-executed` - Published: 2024-08-14T23:04:07.000+05:00 - Updated: 2024-08-15T11:11:02.000+05:00 - Reading time: 6 min - Tags: Game Design, Product Design, System Design, Design, Gaming, Multiplayer Gaming, Playroom, PlayroomKit, Development, Software Engineering - Authors: Maaz Tariq - Visibility: public ** Great video games are like great books or movies; they resonate with us because they reflect our own experiences, dreams, and fears Like a composer crafting a symphony or a painter stroking onto their canvas, designing a game is a similar creative endeavour to any other art. There are no ways to design a game and a million ways to create one simultaneously. Making a good game is like making a good movie, it is supposed to be an experience one goes through that leaves an impact and gives a new perspective. Crafting together a piece of media that can deliver enough sentimental value to keep players coming back, that is what game design is all about. ## Making your Game Relatable One of the key aspects of making a moving art piece is adding elements in the piece that help the audience relate to it. When one sees another character going through situations they have gone through in real life, it develops a bond with the character. This pattern is commonly seen with anime protagonists having very relatable personality traits or situations in even a supernatural world. ** It should be the experience, that is touching. What I strive for is to make the person playing the game the director ***- Shigeru Miyamoto*** *****Papers, Please****Invoking that feeling of relatability is a key part of keeping the players coming back. A good example of executing this strategy is “Papers, Please”. To say very loosely, it's a game about checking and approving documents. A very simple premise, but it is a hit game because the way it sets the mood and develops the scene is very natural. It reminds you of a paperwork-heavy office, it makes you feel like an actual clerk with all the tediousness that comes with it. flipping through pages to check for rules, the applicant’s documents missing or fraudulent cards and ID cards and you have to manage all this junk under a time limit. The authenticity of the experience sells the game. *****Katana Zero****The experience we want to invoke is not limited to experiences our player has personally experienced but also seen others experience in their vicinity. The video game “Celeste” does an excellent job of explaining what depression feels like to people who haven’t experienced it, helping them understand people who suffer from depression. “Katana Zero” is a game with an excellent storyline. It explains the struggles of a soldier dealing PTSD in a very supernatural, ongoing conspiracy theory setting. After going back and forth with some product teams, I've learned that this goes hand-in-hand with KYC (Know Your Customer). Something which might help you to narrow down an idea is to first do some bare-bone **audience research. **Who is the target audience you have the most access to, whether in your friends circle, community, or in your company's easiest access? What is daily life for them, what is entertainment, what makes their heads turn? Just some raw data from here, organized and transformed into a "player persona", can act as a prompt for you to brainstorm some better ideas - Then you can easily validate or verify your ideas by just bouncing them off of that persona. (you can even reach out to an audience member and present ideas to them) ## Using the Right Tools Invoking experience is one of, if not the greatest, priorities for a game designer. The designer must have tools capable enough to pull off the ideas they draft. A designer’s canvas is the engine they use. The way you cannot achieve on a smaller canvas what you can on a larger one. You cannot do things on an engine that is incapable of following through with the mechanics of your design. More often than not, the development-end of game-building is almost as artistic as the design side. It makes sense, given that you need to create a world which truly captures the emotion conveyed in the game, or at least having enough helpful snippets which can keep the code clean while building out the game. This usually drives companies to build custom game engines, or at least base them off of existing ones. Many times, technological advances are the reason for designing new experiences to human entertainment. Grayhat's npm package "create-multiplayer-game" is built to speed up the development process and simplify implementing game designs. We use it thoroughly when building out game prototypes - However, by the time the game reaches production, the engine does take a beating. But we use the new findings to improve the engine once more. The package aims to streamline the creation of React-based (more coming in the future!) multiplayer games, making it easier for developers to focus on the creative aspects of game design rather than being limited by technical challenges. *create-multiplayer-game (CMG) does lots of heavy lifting for you. It provides you with prebuilt modules so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. CMG provides a silent router, letting you change game phases without any changes in the URL bar. This makes the game-flow entirely in control of the game itself and handles the possibility of cheating by messing with the URL to switch phases. It also has its own loading module which can show what file is being loaded in real time. All in all it has the essential parts of a video game for any kind of game prebuilt, so you can focus on the design instead of the execution. ## Learning from Retrospective “Meme, Chat, Robots” has a user interface and design similar to Meta apps. When talking about the game with Saad Bazaz, I learned Meme, Chat, Robots’ UI was designed by a talent at Meta. Using Radix, helps us make reusable components that can be used throughout the project, giving it a coherent look and feel. Addition of a silent react-router, one that can route to different pages without showing changes in the URL. While seemingly a small change, it makes a substantial difference for video games. A video game has to follow a game flow, unlike apps where users can go to whatever page they like. moving from stage 1 to stage 2, or from a cut-scene to gameplay requires a game flow that cannot be tampered with from the URL. ## Get Your Hands Dirty As a game designer, your tools are the technologies and languages you build games with and your canvas is the game engine you use. To translate your designs into the game, you will have to know how the game works. How it's built and why it does what it does. You can’t get away with skipping learning a phase of development, learning development helps the design be grounded and realistic. *## Recycle your Trash There’s no such thing as bad ideas. I have used parts of stories and themes I wrote in my high school essays in complete products! Stories and ideas that don’t seem like a good fit are just in the wrong place. Always save your drafts and keep them close whenever you want to brainstorm a new theme or look for your game. Have different folders for all kinds of media you draw inspiration from, then try to fit them to any future projects. Make different folders for music and art and keep adding any ideas in those folders. ** The first mark on an empty canvas is the most difficult to make Having a stash of resources like these help you form your first stroke on a blank canvas. ## Verdict As daunting as designing a video game may seem, following only a couple of principle can guarantee an interesting result. Trial and error is part of the game, like any design process. Pair it with some direction and you’re good to go! Here’s a small recap: - Design the experience, not the app - Bind real-life experiences with the video game’s experience - Use a capable game engine, that fits your game aesthetic and can pull off your design - Learn and apply from previous projects, embrace failure - Learn and experience every part of the dev process firsthand Now building the latest video game, I have learnt a few more lessons to help me contribute to CMG. Stay tuned for more in-depth articles discussing game design and CMG!